I guess Torie and I just have differing philosophies on redistricting. If I were advising the Republicans on redistricting, I'd tell them to lock in their gains from 2010 rather than trying to take out even more Democrats. I'd rather have 200-ish seats locked in as fairly safe than trying to get even more Republicans in office while risking a landslide in the next Dem year.
They need to be aggressive in some (eg, North Carolina), in order to counteract expected losses in, say, Illinois and California. But I would agree that Wisconsin is probably not the state to do it in.
I think the goals should be
1) make sure all 5 Republicans are safe (or safer, at least);
2) tinker with WI-03 at the margins to make it slightly swingier;
3) keep communities of interest together (since there aren't huge gains to be made, may as well appeal to the good government sensibilities of Wisconsinites).
I'd keep Paul Ryan's district the way it is. It's only at GOP+2 but, seeing as he hasn't dropped below 62% since his first run (where he got 57% in a bad GOP year), he'll be perfectly fine. (There might be trouble if he gets tapped for a higher office, but I'm sure the GOP would trade a house seat for Paul Ryan at OMB.)
Obviously the Milwaukee district stays put as well. I'd slide all the other districts clockwise a bit:
Sensenbrenner's district goes west, pushing into Columbia, perhaps; Baldwin's takes as many strong Dem precincts as it can in in the southwestern counties.
Petri picks up Portage from WI-07 and also some suburbs from Sensenbrenner, losing Manitowoc and Calumet to WI-08; it could also share Columbia with Sensenbrenner. WI-07 pushes east across the woods, but keeps Superior (I don't like the idea of throwing it into WI-03; way too ugly). WI-03 gets whatever it needs north of Eau Claire.
